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CEDAR CITY — Southern Utah University football finally got its first win of the season and in Big Sky conference play on Saturday, beating Weber State 31-28. SUU is now 1-4 on the year while keeping Weber State winless with a record of 0-5. The Thunderbirds showed major improvements on both sides of the ball. The SUU offense finally found some consistency in its scoring while the defense forced four turnovers.
Offense: B
Ammon Olsen threw for 224 yards and three touchdowns. Olsen helped SUU put 31 points on the board, which is a season-high. SUU got off to a nice start, scoring on its first two drives of the game. Chris Robinson had a good game with 72 receiving yards, including two touchdowns.
Although SUU won the game, Weber had 341 passing yards compared with SUU’s 224 passing yards. Weber also beat SUU on total offensive yards with 492 compared to SUU’s 360 total offensive yards.
Defense: B+
The defense forced four turnovers for Weber. Chinedu Ahanonu once again led SUU with 10 tackles while intercepting a Billy Green pass. The defense sealed the victory in the fourth quarter, stopping the Wildcats on their final four drives. The plays included Miles Killebrew forcing a fumble, James Cowser and Kouri Jones sacking WSU quarterback Green and Josh Smith cementing the win when he picked off Green’s pass with five seconds left in the game.
However, the SUU defense still allowed the Weber State offense to combine for 492 yards. But the SUU defense definitely showed improvement from the previous weeks.
Team: B
SUU continually shows progress week to week and it was nice to see it all come together for the team's first win of the season over Weber State. The offense finally found a groove in its scoring, and Olsen is settling into being the starting quarterback over Aaron Cantu.
The defense gave WSU a hard time, and the turnovers it forced sealed the SUU victory.
SUU will continue its Big Sky conference play next week when it plays at Cal Poly.
